It will take a while to digest all the implications of the new bill, even for those of us who watched it go through the legislative process over the last six months or so.

Some of the highlights:

The new law allows the termination of a tenancy for criminal activity. Drug dealing is one of the crimes you can evict for, but simple possession or use of drugs is not. Politically, allowing possession was necessary. But it is still disappointing that owners that wish to, still cannot expect drug free housing. With this new tool to address problems year leases are practical in more situations than they are today. An advantage of leases is less turn over and that should make neighborhoods more stable. Keep in mind that the Wisconsin protections for domestic abuse victims remain in place.

Another change affects month to month tenancies – The ability to use 5 Day notices for breaches. Now when the tenant shows up with a pit bull you can respond with a 5 Day instead of a 14 Day. An advantage to the tenant is they can correct their mistake and not lose their home. This may also permit the including of late fees and other charges that the tenant owes on a 5 Day notice. I will get clarification on this.

There are a bunch of changes that should help keep local governments a bit more in check. This legislation:

Prohibits rental property inspections except upon a complaint or as part of a program of regularly scheduled inspections conducted in compliance with state or federal law. Think fire inspections.

Dramatically changes “Reinspection Fee” by limiting the the escalating fee scheme as well as allowing fees only when there was an actual, physical inspection of the property. Currently these fees double every 30 Days until they are six times the original fee, plus often there is no actual inspection associated with the fee. This is important as many of the abandoned and foreclosed homes in my neighborhoods appear to have ended up in that state in part due to fees imposed by Milwaukee. The fees imposed these properties also make it harder for someone to come in, buy the property and put it back in service.

Those of us with any significant amount of real estate need to plan better for what will happen if you suddenly die. Your spouse and kids probably will not enjoy landlording as much as you. Wait, few people “enjoy” landlording, so let’s use the word tolerate instead. You need to have a list of people in the industry that you trust. Keep that list handy for your family so they can get their hands on it if they need to.

My other purpose is to acknowledge real estate broker Graig Goldman who pulled off what many thought would be the impossible. He sold over 100 properties at a good price in less than two months. If you attended the March Apartment Association meeting, Graig was the presenter on buying foreclosures.

A buddy of mine is attempting to sell a couple of his Milwaukee multi-families. He listed it with a broker, but was frustrated when he did not receive any reasonable offers or much interest. This despite the sale would have generated a $70,000 commission.

Years ago the two of us owned a small carpet store, primarily to get wholesale carpet for our properties, but we did some marketing for the store that turned out pretty well. So we decided to try our hand at some self marketing of his property.

Short version: Basically for a few hundred dollars he got listed on the largest commercial listing site in the nation, printed material was mailed to potential buyers and a website with pictures and a video walk through was put up (www.630Hawley.com)

Disclaimer

I am "just a landlord," NOT an attorney or accountant. If you need legal advice, tax advice or have appendicitis, don’t rely on something you read on the internet and do it yourself. Rather, hire a competent professional.